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Hayao Miyazaki's Saihin Zensen Manga Gets Stage Play
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
Hayao Miyazaki's Saihin Zensen manga is inspiring a stage play adaptation. The play will run at six theaters including Art Tower Mito ACM Theatre in Ibaraki and Setagaya Public Theatre in Tokyo from the end of August to October 2019.
Seiyō Uchino will star as the captain of the fishing vessel Kisshomaru. While facing the harsh ocean conditions on the front line, the captain opposes elite military personnel and strives to bring his fellow fishermen back to the home port where their families are waiting.
The play will be the first stage play adaptation of Miyazaki's work produced in Japan. Ryūji Isshiki is directing the play, and Kei Inoue is writing the script.
The Saihin Zensen manga ran in Dainippon Kaiga's Monthly Model Graphix hobby magazine as the 11th story in Miyazaki's Zassō Note (Daydream Data Notes), an irregularly serialized collection of manga and graphical essays that ran in the magazine from the 1980s to 90s. The manga is set in Japan at the end of the Pacific War when fishing boats functioned as special observation vessels to track the status of the attacking American forces. The story follows the crew of such fishing boats and members of Japan's navy.
The Leamington Spa, Warwickshire theater company Whole Hog Theatre previously adapted Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke anime, and it ran in London and Tokyo in 2013.
Sources: Art Tower Mito's website, Comic Natalie via Ghibli no Sekai
